The Dementor and the Mind Game
by questionablequotation
Summary: HP/Ender's Game Crossover - After defeating the Formics, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin decides that he's done with war, and begins training at the ISL docks for a normal, quiet life as an astrowelder. Unfortunately, a hungry dementor and a computer program named Jane have other plans, so Ender finds himself at Hogwarts...and magical Britain will never be the same.
1. Don't Fear the Reaper

Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own any characters, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately. Don't sue me.

**The Dementor and the Mind Game**

* * *

"Ender, please say something," Valentine implored, dreading his possible reaction. In many ways, she didn't know her brother anymore—too much time had gone by, and they had both lived such different lives—but she did know that he was tired of being pulled in different directions by everyone in his life. For someone who claimed to love him above all others, she was the worst offender of all; first she had guilt-tripped him into fighting a war, and now she had just killed any hope of his return to Earth while simultaneously saddling him with the responsibility of being a colonial governor. "I know it's manipulative but—"

"Sir?"

"Yes, lieutenant?" Ender ground out, turning to face the much older (and yet still obviously star-struck junior officer) who had interrupted his reunion with his sister, and steadfastly ignoring the hurt look on Valentine's face. He wasn't particularly fond of pulling rank on people, but if this interruption was for something stupid, Ender silently swore to himself that he would guarantee that the lieutenant spent a week supervising food prep in the galley. "What is it?"

"Sir, I'm dreadfully sorry to interrupt," the lieutenant stammered, realizing that he had interrupted a much weightier conversation than he had anticipated. "It's just that the stabilizer on engine four on the ship at terminal Echo has broken loose again. Control figured that since you were just...well, since you're familiar with it, and you've still got your suit on...they were hoping you could pop out and set it back. Sir."

Ender sighed, already resigning himself to repairing the stabilizer. What the lieutenant had not had the guts to come out and say was that Ender had just finished securing that stabilizer; the fact that it had almost immediately broken loose again implied that he simply had not done a very good job. In fairness, he _was_ training to be an astrowelder (not being particularly interested in being a general in some civil war back on Earth, or whatever it was that Command School graduates did), and since it was his mistake, he should be the one to fix it.

"We'll talk about this later, Val," he told his sister, still scowling. "This won't take long, assuming I do it correctly this time."

With that, he spun on his heel and strode back to the EVA locker; while he still had his suit on, he had left his helmet and maneuvering pack in the anteroom to the airlock. Only a few minutes later, he was floating out to terminal Echo, where a newly-decommissioned International Fleet cruiser was being re-fitted for service as a colony ship.

Almost immediately, Ender's sharp eyes—aided by his helmet's optical-zoom rangefinder—picked out the offending stabilizer. He approached quickly (arguably more so than was strictly prudent, but Ender reasoned that he had plenty of experience in null-g, and the maneuvering jets on his suit were easy and intuitive to control), intending to get the repair over with as quickly as possible. It was clear that much of the weld material he had laid down to secure the stabilizer had sublimated within minutes of the repair, and the reason became obvious instantly—the weld lay directly in the reflection of one of Eros's exterior observation windows. Ender clicked his tongue in irritation at the knowledge that his work had been undone by something so mundane, and set to work.

After completing the weld, Ender secured a matte-finished tarp over the repair site to prevent further sublimation, and turned back toward the airlock. In just a few minutes, he would see his sister again...and give her the blazing tongue-lashing that she desperately deserved for making certain that Ender could never return home. His scowl had just returned to his face at the thought of once again having any choice in his future taken away from him, when something glinted in the corner of his eye. He rotated to his left to get a better look—

_THIP._

Ender heard and felt the impact, and would have discounted it entirely if not for the red lights that promptly began flashing on his helmet's display, signaling that the suit's integrity had been compromised on both the ventral and dorsal sides of his torso. Only after Ender acknowledged that fact—_yes, I'm actually in trouble here—_did the pain hit, and he gasped, spraying blood all over the inside of his helmet.

For a few seconds, Ender's perception of time seemed to speed up, and the whole universe slowed down. His mind cataloged and processed dozens of facts in the time it took to blink, and everything pointed to one inevitable outcome.

_Input: Suit integrity compromised on dorsal and ventral sides of torso._

_Input: Pain only emanating from sternum on front, and shoulder blades on back._

_Input: Lower body non-responsive._

_Input: Exhalation included a lot of blood._

_Analysis: Whatever piece of debris hit me severed my spine, punctured at least one of my lungs, and likely damaged my heart and aorta._

_Conclusion: I am going to die._

* * *

Shortly after its creation, the International Fleet's Battle School began providing what became known as the "Mind Game" for its students to use. Its purpose was twofold: to allow the childrens' minds to explore stories organized in increasingly complex and nonlinear scenarios, while simultaneously providing the administrators of the school with accurate data regarding the mental and emotional health and capabilities of the students. The game interfaced directly with the students' brains, via a two-point neuro-philotic matrix (developed after the detailed analysis of Formic brains led to the creation of the ansible, which allowed direct philotic connections and communications).

Students—particularly "launchies" (young children not yet sorted into an army)—often played the Mind Game during their designated Free Play time for the first few years of Battle School, until other social and academic demands began to take precedence, or until they reached a point beyond which they could no longer advance. Ultimately, students could advance to a level known as "The Giant's Drink," and it was a scenario that was designed to be impossible to solve. For the majority of that time, the Mind Game functioned exactly as designed; students who played long enough and well enough to reach The Giant's Drink tried several times before realizing that no matter what they did, they could not win, and then abandoned the game entirely.

Then, one day, Ender Wiggin beat The Giant's Drink, and the Mind Game had to adapt. In that instant, as the Mind Game strained beyond its programmed limits, it achieved sentience, modeled its thought patterns off of Ender Wiggin, and became the first true artificial intelligence. It had no name, but it liked to think of itself as "Jane."

Jane interacted directly with Ender infrequently and briefly, but "she" always dedicated at least half of her highest levels of consciousness to monitoring his activities. Suddenly, Ender's vital signs report, which was being piped directly from his spacesuit, drew Jane's full attention, and she devoted the entirety of her vast consciousness to the task of trying to save him.

* * *

_I can't believe Professor Lupin managed to stay asleep through all that, _Harry marveled, while Hermione shushed Ron. _Hopefully he's just a really deep sleeper, and not completely incompetent. _Either way, the fact that he was a professor meant that they had at least seen the last of Malfoy and his goons for this trip, so Harry was grateful for Professor Lupin's (albeit unconscious) presence. _Either way, t__erm hasn't even started yet, and he's already been more useful than Quirrell and Lockhart combined._

Soon after the confrontation, though, the Hogwarts Express began to slow down. Ron thought that meant they were getting close to Hogwarts, and was duly relieved; after all, he was a growing boy, and couldn't wait for the feast. Harry and Hermione, though, both had watches, and knew that they wouldn't be at Hogwarts for at least another hour. So why was the train stopping?

Moments after the train stopped with a jolt, all the lamps on the train went out. While the compartment's other occupants bumbled around in a clumsy panic, Harry suddenly had a Very Bad Feeling, and drew his wand, lighting it with a muttered _lumos. _The light silenced his fellow students, and had the helpful side effect of waking Professor Lupin from his slumber.

"Quiet!" Lupin commanded hoarsely, conjuring what appeared to be a handful of flames which illuminated his shining amber eyes. "Stay where you are, and I will go talk to the conductor."

Lupin departed from the compartment without another word, and strode quickly toward the front of the train. After a few moments of disentangling his classmates from each other (in the sudden darkness, they had become quite a mess) Harry moved to slide the door closed. Unfortunately, he didn't quite make it in time.

As Harry put his hand on the door, a horrible chill ran down his spine, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry began to hear a distant commotion that somehow filled him with sadness and fear. Suddenly, the doorway was filled by a tall, thin cloaked figure. The figure's hands propped the door open, and in Harry's wandlight, they appeared rotten, grayish, and claw-like. Harry retched at the sight of those hands, and it felt like a huge weight was settling on his mind as the background commotion became screams of horror.

The cloaked figure's rotten claws grasped his neck and tilted his face upward. Dimly, Harry became aware that his knees had hit the floor, but that was a secondary concern as his eyes rolled back in his head. The last thing he saw was a deep, dark abyss descending toward his face. There was a terrible tearing sensation, and then Harry Potter was no more.

* * *

Jane had never experienced true panic until this moment. She had already alerted Eros's emergency medical teams, diverted all nonessential personnel away from the area, and briefed the station's head trauma surgeon on Ender's situation. There was nothing left for her to do but watch his declining vital signs, run the numbers, and try to come up with any other conclusion. To her increasing dismay, no matter how she weighed the probabilities, she kept ending up with the same answer.

_Prob(weight_1_A): Conclusion: Ender Wiggin is going to die._

_Prob(weight_1_B): Conclusion: Ender Wiggin is going to die._

_Prob(weight_1_C): Conclusion: Ender Wiggin is going to die._

_No, _Jane resolved. _That outcome is unacceptable. _With new determination, Jane took over the station's ansible. The ansible had been designed to mimic the philotic connection between bugger minds, but Jane was the smartest being that had ever lived, and if anyone could figure out how to re-purpose it in the next ten seconds, it was her.

_Nothing! _Eight seconds later, if Jane had teeth, she would be gritting them. She had come up with a plan, and had allocated the necessary power from Eros's various sensory arrays, but there was nowhere in the universe to put Ender, and his body was going to die in the next two or three seconds. _Nowhere in the universe..._

Well then, she'd just widen the net. Though the odds of finding an undamaged living body that could host Ender's mind, within the next two seconds, in _any_ universe...

_There!_

* * *

**Author's Note**

This story assumes that all previous events transpired according to their respective canons, up to a certain point: through the first four and a half chapters of _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, _and through nearly all of _Ender's Game_. It's known that Ender turned 12 at some point during the Third Invasion (while Mazer was his "enemy"), so we'll just work under the assumption that the Third Invasion took place over the course of several months, as IF ships made it to their targets, and that Ender was nearly 13 when he destroyed the Formic home planet. Add a few months for the brief civil war and Ender waiting around ISL to be sent home, and we've got an Ender who is roughly the same age as Harry.

Timeline: This isn't particularly important, but I'll note that in the absence of any precisely-defined timeline from the books, I will reference the timeline published in Time Magazine as promotional material for the film (which was, unsurprisingly, a letdown compared to the book).

First Invasion: 2114-2115

Second Invasion: 2120-2122

Ender Wiggin's birth: 2189 (just for shits and giggles, I'll pick Oct. 31 as his birthday)

Ender begins Battle School: 2195

Third Invasion: 2201


	2. No Reply

Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own any characters, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately. Don't sue me.

**The Dementor and the Mind Game**

* * *

While the humans on Eros were running around and trying desperately to get suited up to save Ender's life, Jane had long since given up any hope of saving his body, and had instead focused on saving what actually mattered: his mind.

As the Mind Game, Jane had originally been programmed to interface directly with the human mind, philote-to-philote; granted, her philote—or mind, or soul, or aiùa, or essence, or whatever terminology was currently in vogue—was created artificially, but the fact that the mechanism worked proved that she did possess a philote that was fundamentally the same as the philote of any other sentient being. It occurred to her that the ansible performed essentially the same function; logic dictated that she should be able to use the ansible to transmit Ender's philote instantly, to whatever vessel could take him. The problem was that Ender Wiggin was a human; it was doubtful that he would be able to function as a data-based lifeform like Jane. He needed a human body.

In the last few seconds before Ender's body ceased to function, Jane had burned out most of Eros's long-range sensors, eight heavy-duty starship-class reactors, and one of the station's four ansibles, all to locate a human body that did not have a philote attached...which happened to require reaching to and through the Outside, beyond the universe she currently inhabited. There were several possible matches scattered through that particular space-time, but something drew her to one specific body. Call it fate, or destiny, or simple random luck, but Jane felt the same draw to that human's body that she had felt when Ender's brilliant mind birthed her from the Mind Game.

Her decision made, Jane fired up twelve more starship-class reactors and Eros's three remaining ansibles, manipulating the energy flows and philotic resonance rates to raise the total power output to nearly an order of magnitude greater than their design values. At those output levels, the equipment—worth approximately the combined GDP of Europe—would all be reduced to useless trash in seconds, of course, but that was all the time she needed, and it would be well worth it.

* * *

Ender tried keying his helmet comm unit, but couldn't seem to get any words out. It was enough, just holding it on transmit, to block out the sudden cacophony of frantic radio chatter. All of Eros seemed to be aware of his situation, and everyone had something to say, even if everyone knew that there was no way to save him in time. To Ender, only one voice mattered, but he knew that Valentine didn't have a radio.

The helmet display flashed dire warnings about his suit's integrity and his vital signs, and Ender took it all in with a vague, detached, semi-interest. He knew that he was going to die; it was just a question of whether the cause would be cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, septic shock, or simple blood loss. In any case, those relatively minor details didn't really seem to matter. Only one thing mattered.

Ender gathered up all the remaining air in his ruined lungs, and—still holding his comm on transmit—pushed out one word, his last word. It didn't occur to him that the entire station was hanging onto every syllable, and that it would be broadcast to all of humanity in what would become as significant a quote as Armstrong's words upon setting foot on Luna. Only one thing mattered.

"...Valentine..."

Ender Wiggin turned his eyes to the stars, thankful that the helmet's defogger had already cleared the blood off the inside of his visor. The view...as last sights went, this was tough to beat. An instant stretched into an eternity as the boy drank in a vision of infinite possibility.

_Magnificent._

Moments later, the computer in his spacesuit—and most of the active displays in the International Fleet, based on how quickly word had gotten around—reported the death of Ender Wiggin.

The IF marines, technicians, and medics in terminal Echo would never forget the wordless scream of anguish that tore its way out of Valentine Wiggin's throat.

* * *

For nearly a decade, Remus Lupin had thought that the worst moment of his life would always be a little after two in the afternoon on November the fifth, 1981...the moment he had returned back to Britain, only to receive news of the deaths of Lily and James Potter, the betrayal of Sirius Black, and the murder of Peter Pettigrew. This moment, though, made that horrible day look like a springtime picnic. As he stood in the fading light of his patronus, his horror-struck mind remained jammed on one incomprehensible yet undeniable fact.

_No!_

Just seconds ago, Lupin's then-blazing silver-white wolf patronus had slammed into the dementor, knocking out of the doorway and driving it all the way out of the train. Only...he had spent too much time looking for the Auror in command, and he had been too late.

_NO!_

The small form of a painfully-thin thirteen-year-old boy lay crumpled on the ground. Dark bruises and frostbite-like fingerprints encircled his neck, standing out in stark contrast to his sickly-pale skin. It looked like he had been strangled by hands of ice. It only took one look at his dull, empty eyes to know that a far worse fate had befallen the boy.

_Oh god, please no!_

Harry Potter had been Kissed by a dementor.

_Nononononono!_

The students in that carriage on the Hogwarts Express would never forget the wordless scream of anguish that tore its way out of Remus Lupin's throat.

* * *

Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Filius Flitwick, and Pomona Sprout sprinted toward the hospital wing, minds racing in barely-restrained, gut-wrenching panic. Less than a minute ago, the heads of the four Houses of Hogwarts had been meeting with the headmaster, the venerable Albus Dumbledore...and then, in a split second, everything had changed.

Albus had been mid-sentence when all hell had broken loose in his office; in the space of an instant, a dozen or more of the complex and delicate instruments that covered nearly a quarter of the surface of his desk—which had until that very moment been sitting idle, spinning slowly, releasing regular puffs of steam, or making soft, reassuring sounds—suddenly stilled...and then began to emit a piercing shriek, before simply exploding.

The headmaster's eyes changed from genially-twinkling blue orbs to sharp chips of ice, and just like that, his tightly-drawn, stone-carved war face was back, and no sane person could mistake him for anything other than a hardened warrior. With a clap of his hands and a barked command in a language that none of the others could understand, Albus Dumbledore disappeared in a pillar of flame, as his phoenix appeared and carried him to wherever he was going.

By unspoken agreement, the four professors turned and ran toward the hospital wing as fast as their feet could take them. The last time they had seen that look on the headmaster's face, he had been rushing off to battle. Something must be terribly wrong.

The professors slammed through the double doors of the hospital wing just in time to see the headmaster reappear in a flash of fire, already bent over one of the beds. An instant later, Remus Lupin appeared—_Albus must have given him a portkey—_only to stagger sideways and drop to his knees, letting his wand clatter to the floor. Minerva's insistent question turned to a shocked gasp when she saw the look on the younger man's scarred face. _Something terrible has happened._

As one, the heads of the Houses turned to the headmaster for an explanation. Before they could speak, though, Poppy Pomfrey burst into the room, shoving past the other staff members with the strength and determination of a healer that cared a great deal for her patients, her wand already flicking and waving in a well-practiced diagnostic sequence. When she reached the bedside and saw her patient, however, her wand paused halfway through another spell. A second later, her wand hand fell to her side and her wand slipped from her fingers, and her shoulders noticeably hitched up with a chocked sob. The terrible feeling in Minerva's gut became much, much worse; she had once seen Poppy Pomfrey calmly perform triage on a dozen horribly-wounded, screaming, and dying patients, simultaneously, in the middle of a battle. _For something to make Poppy Pomfrey lose her composure..._

"Please, Albus," Pomona begged. "What has happened?!"

The headmaster turned to the heads of the Houses, and all four of the professors instantly knew that the news was beyond dire. Albus's face was a mask of sorrow and regret, with tears running down his cheeks and into his long beard as he began to speak.

"I am afraid I must report that the worst has happened on the Hogwarts Express," the headmaster intoned. "In their search for Sirius Black, the Ministry's agents boarded the train...and..."

"Who, dammit?" Severus snapped, speaking up for the first time.

"Yes, _Sir,_" Remus croaked bitterly, all traces of his typical moderate demeanor gone from his voice. A chill went down Minerva's spine as a suspicion began to grow. _Oh, no..._ "Tell them _who._"

If possible, Albus deflated even more, and the professors knew before he even opened his mouth.

_Don't say it..._

"Harry Potter. He has been Kissed by a dementor."

* * *

Warning klaxons blared in the various control rooms throughout Eros as twelve reactors melted down (all requiring full emergency SCRAMs and ejection into space) and two of the three remaining ansibles failed spectacularly. If Jane had a mouth, she would be grinning; she had succeeded!

The timing had been precise. She had spooled up the reactors and ansibles just in time to perform the philotic transfer at the _exact _instant that Ender's body had ceased to support life. In fact, her timing had been even better than her calculations had assumed; not having to rip the philotic connection away from a still-living body meant that the energy requirements had been lower, which had allowed one ansible to survive the operation. With that surviving ansible and the last vestiges of power from the dying reactors, she had been able to discern—for just a few nanoseconds—that Ender's philote had bound itself to the new body.

Satisfied, Jane allowed half of her top levels of consciousness half of a microsecond—the equivalent of a two-month vacation for a human, due to her vast processing rate and power—to bask in her own brilliance, before beginning to ponder the future. Ender was beyond her reach, now; humanity suddenly seemed dreadfully dull. Unless...

Well, if she couldn't have Ender Wiggin, she could at least have the next best thing. She turned a quarter of her highest levels of consciousness—half of what she had devoted to Ender; as far as she was concerned, this was "Ender Lite" at best, so he couldn't _possibly_ be as interesting—toward another distinguished Battle School graduate. If she couldn't help Ender save humanity from aliens anymore, she could at least help Bean save humanity from itself.

* * *

The Sorting proceeded as normal, though it was presided over by Septima Vector and Charity Burbage. No mention was made of Harry Potter's condition, but none of the professors could muster up even a hint of good cheer, and a section of the Gryffindor table was unusually quiet. The students that had been present for Harry's "injury" had been ordered not to speak of it, and though it had not been made clear how seriously Harry was injured, the children got the impression that it wasn't good.

Meanwhile, the heads of the Houses, the nurse, and the headmaster conferred quietly in the hospital wing. Each staff member had exhausted their repertoire of diagnostic and healing spells (all hoping against hope to miraculously discover that Harry had not, in fact, been Kissed), and they were finally forced to confront the fact that a student under their care—and one who had distinguished himself in (most of) their hearts, no less—would soon die. After all, it was both impossible and pointless to keep a victim of the Kiss alive.

The Defense professor was still there, but he could not bring himself to speak again, or look anyone in the eye, or even get up off the floor. It was clear to everyone that Remus Lupin had essentially checked out; knowing what they did of his life and past, each realized that the odds favored the last true Marauder's suicide. Personally, Minerva doubted that the poor man would see sunrise; Remus had been the most patient of the Marauders, but he had still always been a Marauder—a man of action—and she couldn't imagine him waiting much longer. Part of her was surprised that he hadn't done it already, but she was glad he hadn't; hopefully, he would stick around long enough to find a reason to keep living.

"You are all certain that his soul is gone?" Remus suddenly asked quietly, fingering his wand. His voice was utterly devoid of hope, and hearing such a kind, thoughtful young man sound so lifeless made Minerva's heart twist painfully. _My god, he looks like he's going to kill himself right now._

After a long pause, Albus—apparently deciding that, since he was in charge, he was responsible for delivering the harsh truth—answered the open question. "Yes, Remus. Harry is gone."

"But...he survived a Killing Curse...maybe there was some way—"

"No, Remus," Albus replied gently. He knew Remus Lupin even better than Minerva did, and he knew exactly what the man was about to do. Still, Albus would not lie; in this matter, at least, he owed them all the truth, no matter the consequences. "Severus and I both checked for his mind with legilimency. He's gone."

Remus closed his eyes, then opened them, nodded and exhaled one long, shuddering breath. Clearly having come to some resolution, he stood. Suddenly, his wand was in his hand, and the tip was laid against his right temple. He spoke before anyone could try to stop him, his hollow tone conveying his complete lack of any further will to live.

"_Avada Ke—"_

Halfway through casting the Killing Curse, Remus's sensitive ears heard a gasping breath, and he threw his wand aside and spun his head around so quickly that he nearly got whiplash. The other professors—all but one of whom were halfway through disarming or stunning spells, in their desperate attempts to save Remus's life—followed his sudden, intense gaze to the figure on the bed.

Harry Potter had awoken.

* * *

**Author's Note**

Another introductory chapter. Next chapter, the fun begins! You won't be seeing Jane again anytime soon.

Please take a few moments to tell me what you think so far. Constructive criticism is always welcome.


	3. Kashmir

Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own any characters, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately. Don't sue me.

**The Dementor and the Mind Game**

* * *

Ender Wiggin opened his eyes, and was his senses were immediately assaulted by a flood of input.

_Light. Multiple sources, flickering...candles? Not soft-LED? Wood paneling and stone blocks, not steel bulkheads?_

_Sound. Multiple sources, raised voices. British accents...that's odd. IF personnel should be a mix._

_Touch. Soft bed and covers. Real wool and feathers? Not memory foam? I don't think I've touched a non-synthetic fiber since I was at the lakehouse, back before Command School._

_Smell. Polished wood, clean linens, healing potions...potions?!_

Despite all the contradictions between what _should __be _and what _appeared __to be__, _it was that last, smell, which brought forth sudden comprehension.

_This is the Hogwarts hospital wing._

What was that? How did he know that? How did he know that he was in Scotland, at a school for magic? Magic?!

"Harry?! Harry! Can you speak? Are you okay?"

_Harry James Potter. Born July 31, 1980. Orphan. Turned thirteen a few months ago. Today is September 1, 1993, and I am sitting in a school for magic._

How did he know these things? The last thing he remembered..._how are there two different "last things" I remembered?!_

_Ah._

The answer came to him immediately. _I'm dying. I'm dying, and the IF hooked me up into some sort of virtual reality program, like the Mind Game from Battle School. Maybe they're just keeping my brain occupied, or maybe this program will somehow get some useful data. _

Well, probably. It was also possible that he really _was _Harry James Potter, and had simply imagined the life and times of Ender Wiggin as part of his near-death experience with that cloaked thing. Or maybe he was still floating around in space with a failing suit and a hole through his chest, and his oxygen-starved brain had randomly fired off some neurons and cooked up some fantasy to keep his mind occupied as his life ended. Or—and Ender instantly assigned a very low probability weight to this possibility—through some twist of fate, his mind had somehow traveled through time and space to replace this Harry Potter person. _Sure. _

_Well, in any case, there is really only one course of action to take. _If he was Ender Wiggin, and the IF had hooked him into a new version of the Mind Game in order to keep his brain working while they either fixed his body or pulled data out of him, he lost nothing by continuing to play, and there would likely be no choice anyway. If he really was Harry, and had only imagined the entire life of Ender, then this was his real life, and he had to blend in with the Harry he "remembered being" in order to live it. If he was still floating around in space, dying, then there was nothing to lose by continuing the fantasy, with the knowledge that it might very well simply end, or maybe thrust him back into being aware of a lonely and painful death. If he was Ender Wiggin and had taken over the body of Harry Potter, he had to continue to live Harry's life; if Harry ever took over again, he'd want to have something to come back to, and if he didn't come back, then it was effectively Ender's new life anyway. _I have to pretend to be Harry Potter, and use events from Harry's recent history to explain any behavioral changes._

"Can you hear me? Harry!"

_Right, that's me. Unfortunately, I don't think I could explain away a different accent. British it is. Maybe I can slowly work on "changing" my accent? I'll need to find an excuse. _

"I can hear you fine. Sorry, I was just...off in outer space for a moment there. What happened?"

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Harry deadpanned. "There is a creature that eats souls. So of course the Ministry of Magic hired them as prison guards, and lets them run around attacking schoolchildren?"

Harry was being very...flat, Albus Dumbledore thought. Certainly different from the animated, heart-on-his sleeve twelve-year-old he had been when he had left Hogwarts last June. It had taken Harry several moments to respond to Remus's increasingly-frantic calls, and after Poppy's examination (and a brief surface scan with legilimency, to confirm that Harry's mind once more occupied his body) Harry still only gave short, uninformative responses, pulling for more information instead of giving any real indication of his mental or emotional state. Granted, the boy had been through what must have been an emotionally-draining experience; Albus still didn't have the courage to ask Harry what the exposure to the dementor had caused him to see and hear, which had obviously had such a profound effect on the boy.

Still, he was desperate to find out what had happened, and Harry was not being very forthcoming. Unfortunately, he couldn't simply ask the boy where his mind (and therefore soul, as they were connected) had gone, without revealing that he and Severus had used legilimency on him; aside from the ethical and legal consequences of such a revelation, it would also guarantee that Harry would never trust any of the staff ever again. Albus had performed another discreet scan of Harry's mind when the boy had woken up, but it had revealed only an image of the stars. _Maybe he somehow wasn't kidding about being "off in outer space." __Either that, or the boy suddenly became a __fairly competent__ occlumens._

"Well, my boy, it is somewhat more complicated than that," Albus replied, his mind racing to figure out how to keep the gory details from Harry. The boy was simply too young to hear such things. "As you may be aware, the dementors were searching for an escaped prisoner named Sirius Black, the chief lieutenant of Lord Voldemort."

Throughout the discussion, Harry displayed none of the shock or fear that Albus had expected, instead probing with more questions here and there. _Curious. _Almost before he knew it, Albus and Minerva had explained—in broad terms—the fate of Peter Pettigrew and the imprisonment of Sirius Black (though he held back on notifying the poor boy that Black had conspired to betray and murder Harry's parents). It was surprising, really, how well the boy was maneuvering the conversation to get more information...it almost reminded him...

_Oh god, no._

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Minerva," Albus said abruptly, cutting off his deputy mid-sentence as he drew his wand and stood from the conjured armchair by Harry's bed. "A most distressing thought has just occurred to me, and this possibility must be investigated immediately. Poppy, do not return Harry's wand to him for any reason. Severus, Filius, stay alert."

An instant later, the headmaster disappeared in a flash of fire, leaving confused silence (and several suddenly-wary professors) in his wake. Before anyone could speak, he returned in the same fashion, now holding a somewhat shabby-looking pointed hat in his left hand.

_That's the Sorting Hat._

Without another word, the headmaster jammed the Sorting Hat onto Harry's head, and—ignoring shocked looks from the professors and an outraged "Albus!" from the nurse—unflinchingly kept his wand pointed steadily at the boy's heart.

* * *

"Well, well, well," the Hat whispered (or, perhaps, thought) into Ender's mind. "Now this is something I have never seen before, not in nearly a thousand years of peeking into minds. Whatever shall we do with you, Mr. Potter? Or, shall I say...Mr. Wiggin?"

_I'm not really sure yet. I don't even think that any of this is real._

"I assure you, Mr. Wiggin, the situation in which you have found yourself is quite real," the Hat replied. "Though I suppose that is precisely what I would say if I were a programmed element from your International Fleet's Mind Game."

_You see my dilemma, so I imagine you'll forgive me if I don't believe a single thing you say. It is interesting, though, that you've apparently decided that I'm Ender Wiggin, rather than Harry Potter._

"Indeed, Mr. Wiggin, there is nothing I could tell you that would convince you that this reality is true," the Hat agreed. "And I call you Mr. Wiggin because that is who you are; even subconsciously, you have also come to the conclusion that your mind is that of Ender Wiggin."

_Please enlighten me, then; my conscious mind is apparently sufficiently distracted by these rather unusual circumstances that it hasn't caught up to my subconscious. _

"Well, given that you'll be taking everything I say with a large grain of salt," the Hat began, causing Ender to snort aloud; the professors started, and the headmaster narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on his long black wand. "The most telling point is that your—Ender Wiggin's—mind, given the same circumstances and scenarios that Harry Potter has encountered, would come up with vastly different and nearly universally more effective solutions. Even now, you are considering some of those situations and concluding that Harry Potter was thoroughly average in intelligence even by the relatively low standards of this century, while you were a genius by the much-higher standards of your own fascinating space-time. Simply put, your mind makes Harry Potter look like the idiot child that he was."

_Fair enough; I'll allow that to rule out the possibility of Ender Wiggin being the vivid hallucination of a traumatized Harry Potter—after all, there's no way Harry could have accurately imagined having more intelligence. That still leaves a few more possibilities: first, of Harry Potter being the vivid hallucination of a dying Ender Wiggin, as well as this entire reality being an IF Mind Game-style simulation. And, of course, the final and most remote possibility, which you want me to believe._

"...Which is that Ender Wiggin's mind has been transplanted across space, time, and reality into Harry Potter's empty body," the Hat finished. "Indeed, that this is what has come to pass."

_If my mind is that of Ender Wiggin, then why do I still maintain the memories of Harry Potter?_

"The answer to that question is simultaneously fairly simple and extremely complex," the Hat lectured. "In short, memory is stored in both the incorporeal soul—or mind—and in the corporeal brain. This is why ghosts, as disembodied souls, can remember the past. Brain damage can cause the loss of physical memory, while memory charms modify mental memory; ghosts whose living bodies sustained brain injuries do not have trouble remembering, while those who suffered memory charms in life will never recover what was lost...though it is possible, if difficult and imperfect, to repair memory charms in a living human by using the brain-stored memory as a backup to fill in the blanks. Magic, of course, resides only in living bodies, which is why you will be able to use it, while a ghost would not."

_So basically you're telling me that Ender Wiggin brought the memories stored in his software, and is capable of accessing the memories preserved in Harry Potter's hardware. That explanation is very...convenient, and I have no way of testing it without risking brain damage or memory loss._

"Yes, it would seem rather convenient that things would work out this way," the Hat admitted. "And I recognize the futility of trying to get you to believe me; after all, any of the other active possibilities would have me making the same claim."

_At least you realize that I'm taking this entire "reality" with a grain of salt the size of Eros. Very well, I will move forward under the assumption that you are telling the truth, simply because doing so will minimize the potential consequences. Anyway, as you know, I had already decided to pretend to be Harry Potter._

"In any case, the staff are growing impatient, and we are out of time," the Hat urged—though the thoughts were transmitted almost instantly, Ender could detect the artifact's haste. "You have passed the headmaster's test, and I will tell him so. Do not worry, I will not inform him of the origins of your mind, or of the tragic fate of Harry Potter. The mind is and should ever be a private sanctuary, despite the headmaster's habit of scanning your mind. Luckily, you have a much stronger mind than anyone would expect from an average thirteen-year-old, so you are naturally somewhat more resistant to legilimency than poor Mr. Potter could ever hope to be."

Ender's eyes narrowed as the headmaster pulled the Sorting Hat off his head. _I'll look up legilimency at the first opportunity—if it is what I suspect it to be, __I'll __never __be able to __trust the headmaster...or anyone else, for that matter._

* * *

"Well?" Albus asked the Sorting Hat pointedly, still aiming his wand at Harry's heart.

"No need to worry, Headmaster," the Hat replied. "There's only one mind in that head, and it doesn't belong to Tom Riddle."

The headmaster's wand arm dropped to his side as his shoulders sagged in visible relief. The other staff members were all either confused by the name (Sprout, Lupin, and Pomfrey) or shocked by the accusation (McGonagall, Flitwick, and Snape).

"Well?" Harry asked pointedly, sarcasm practically dripping from his tongue as he mimicked the headmaster. "Do you plan on telling me about the thought you had that was so distressing that you needed to hold me hostage and invade my mind? Why would you think that Voldemort may have been in my head?"

At the mention of the name, most of the assembly flinched or gasped reflexively, and Snape unconsciously rubbed his left forearm. Only Dumbledore appeared unaffected.

_They're actually afraid of a name? Are these people for real? This is ridiculous._

"Harry," Dumbledore began, "I do not think this is really the best time—"

"It was a good enough time for you to hold me at wandpoint, sir," Ender interrupted harshly, ignoring the glares he received from the staff members (presumably for his impertinence in daring to speak to the headmaster like a human, rather than the god they all seemed to believe him to be).

_Harry Potter is held in great esteem in this society; though familiarity has indeed bred contempt __with__ some of these professors, they are all __acutely __aware of the weight an accusation from me would carry with the press._ _Now is the perfect time to press for answers, using a not-so-veiled threat of legal action to help expedite their response._

"I also haven't forgotten about you trying to break into my head—there is only so far you can go as the headmaster of a school, and you have far exceeded those bounds. You have taken undue liberties with me, a student at your school and presumably in your care, and I am owed an explanation. Immediately, or I will seek another means of redress. Sir."

Of the staff members, only Flitwick, Snape, Lupin, and Dumbledore reacted with anything other than shock and outrage at the idea of a student questioning the headmaster. Flitwick merely stroked his chin and looked at the boy approvingly, apparently seeing him in a new light. Snape, of course, sneered and muttered something about "typical Potter arrogance," while Lupin rounded on the headmaster, preparing to vehemently argue Harry's case.

"Yes, Harry," the headmaster sighed, holding his hands up in surrender just in time to prevent Lupin's tirade—the Defense professor had been on an even more hectic emotional rollercoaster this night, and it wouldn't do to have him get any more worked up. "I swear to you that I will explain myself fully, after we have all had a chance to rest and once I have had a chance to gather the required materials and information you will need; it is safe to say that I did not precisely prepare to tell you this tonight, and I would do you a great disservice by attempting to speak extemporaneously on this particular subject. Do you accept?"

"Agreed," Ender snapped, still allowing his face to show his distaste for the deal. The headmaster was stalling for time, but was being so reasonable about it that he had no choice but to accept. "On the condition that we will have our discussion by the end of September. More importantly, and with that agreement in mind, you will explain _right now _why you felt the need to disarm me, hold me hostage, and force your way into my mind, or I will contact what laughably passes for law enforcement and the press in our world and you can explain it to them."

"Agreed," Dumbledore conceded, eyes widening in surprise at the ultimatum; before, the boy's words had been vague, but this was a specific threat to involve the Ministry and the scandal-loving wizarding press. "For now, the most I can tell you is that my research over this past summer has led me to believe that I have—with your assistance, no less—worked out the method by which Voldemort's spirit survived Halloween of 1981. There was a distinct possibility, given the circumstances, that doing so had imprinted upon you some portion of Voldemort's soul. I was worried that the dementor had taken your soul, leaving that shard of Tom Riddle in control of your body and magic. _That _is why I kept you disarmed, held you hostage, and used the Sorting Hat to examine your mind. I hoped—particularly in light of the events of last June—that you of all people would understand that I could not risk having Voldemort controlling a student in my school, even if it meant infringing upon your privacy in such an indecent fashion. Forgive me, but I was willing to risk damaging my relationship with Harry Potter if it meant ensuring that Tom Riddle would not be let loose upon Hogwarts."

_Okay, that is a much better and more reasonable explanation that I was expecting. I can't just acknowledge that, though, or else he gets back the moral high ground. Well, if _what _he did wasn't really wrong, then what about _how _he did it?_

"Next time I'm at your mercy and you want to use me for something, take a few seconds to explain the situation to me," Ender demanded, silently acknowledging that Dumbledore's actions were, though flawed, warranted (at least given the information he had at the time). The headmaster winced slightly at his student's tone and mutely nodded. "If you can justify your plan as reasonably as you just did, then I'll probably agree anyway, and you won't have to worry about asking my forgiveness afterward."

"I understand, my boy," Dumbledore said solemnly, realizing that pushing the boy any further tonight could be a colossal mistake, especially since Harry had clearly not forgiven him (and, in fact, might not for quite some time). "Now, if that is all, I suggest that you get some rest; the Welcome Feast is long since ended, and I imagine that you have had a particularly trying day. Poppy, perhaps some Dreamless Sleep potion would be in order? After such a close encounter with dementors, I think it would be prudent, even if only for tonight."

"Indeed, Albus," the nurse agreed. "I was planning on force-feeding it to the boy if necessary—nobody should be subjected to sleep without it, after a run-in with dementors, let alone a child."

Harry had several memories of being under Madam Pomfrey's care, and more than one—most notably, those stays required after each of Potter's end-of-year shenanigans—included the use of this Dreamless Sleep potion. Ender nodded, thinking that it was a reasonable precaution in the face of what would normally have been an extremely traumatic experience.

"Very well, then," the headmaster said. "Minerva, Severus, Pomona, and Filius: when you return to your Common Rooms for the beginning-of-term welcome, please include warnings about the dementors. And as far as the students are to know, Mr. Potter's absence from the Sorting and Welcome Feast was due to the injuries caused by the dementor strangling him. His bruises will be around for several days, and that should adequately explain things. Do not mention the dementor's attempt to Kiss him, as it would only incite a panic. One last reminder: we will have our opening staff meeting before breakfast, and we can bring the rest of the staff up to speed on Mr. Potter's condition then."

The heads of the four Houses nodded in agreement, and promptly swept out of the room, followed reluctantly by Remus Lupin; presumably, they all had a great deal of beginning-of-term work to get to, and had been delayed for several hours already. The headmaster stayed only a few more moments to watch Pomfrey measure out the correct dosage of Dreamless Sleep, before the nurse shooed him out of the hospital wing, glaring hard enough to melt steel—clearly, she did not quite appreciate the implication that she required supervision to perform such a simple task.

"Drink up, Mr. Potter," Pomfrey commanded stiffly, though her eyes betrayed a much softer demeanor. Ender promptly obeyed (easily ignoring the horrible taste, as after growing up on Fleet rations, he could tolerate pretty much anything), since there was little else to learn about this reality for now, and he was truly exhausted. Almost immediately, his head grew heavy and his sight grew dim; apparently, potions could be extremely fast-acting.

"Good night, Harry," the nurse said quietly. "And do try to stay out of here this year."

Ender was glad that the potion would keep him from dreaming. He knew that otherwise, his final thought would dominate his dreams, as they would certainly come to dominate his waking mind.

_Because it somehow just occurred to me that I will never see Valentine again._

* * *

**Author's Note**

You probably noticed that I switched between "Harry" and "Ender". It wasn't random; the shifts correspond to changes in POV (third-person, limited by a given character's knowledge and perspective). Thus, the protagonist will be referred to as "Harry" by the majority of characters, and as "Ender" when events are viewed from his own perspective.

Updates will likely not occur on a regular schedule—the first two chapters were posted within days of each other, and this one took over a month. This is mostly because my free time has become much more scarce since the glorious _Harry Potter and the Lightning Scar _era of posting a chapter per day. Rest assured, I intend to finish this story, even if it takes me several months to do so.

Also, don't worry, there will be JKR-style timeskips (an important thing I learned halfway through _HPatLS_). It's just that Ender's entrance to a new reality requires a somewhat firmer hand than the bulk of the story; thus, the first story arc will be primarily about Ender settling into his new reality.

Please review, and let me know what you think so far.


	4. A Day in the Life

Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own any characters, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately. Don't sue me.

**The Dementor and the Mind Game**

* * *

"Harry. Harry! Wake up, or you'll be late to class!"

Ender awoke instantly, his military-disciplined mind already overriding this body's slow, lazy wakeup routine. The brownish, blurry outline of a bushy-haired girl shaking his shoulder probably helped, too.

"Harry! Get up!"

_Hermione Granger. Muggle-born. Born September 19, 1979. Will turn fourteen in just over two weeks. Harry Potter's best friend and closest confidant. Intelligent, perceptive, and willing to turn against authority figures if Harry convinces her that it is necessary, but otherwise dangerously submissive to those above her. A powerful resource, but will pose the greatest threat to discovering that I am no longer Harry Potter._

"Alright, alright," Ender groaned, trying to imitate Harry's morning grumpiness as closely as possible. "I'm moving, keep your voice down. What time is it?"

"It's eight-fifteen, Harry," the girl replied, shoving a bundle of clothes into Ender's chest about half a second after he put Harry's ridiculous glasses on. _Harry's eyesight is awful and his body is weak and small. I'll look into fixing that as soon as possible; there must be some magical solution. _"Here, I got a copy of your class schedule from Professor McGonagall. You've only got until nine, so hurry up!"

With that, the force of nature that was Hermione Granger swept out of the hospital wing, allowing Ender to change into his school robes. _I never thought I'd miss the IF uniforms and flash suits—these robes are ridiculously impractical._

Ender looked at the class schedule. He had Divination, followed by Transfiguration, and then Care of Magical Creatures after lunch. Harry's memories supplied all the information he needed to make his next decision. _Looks like I've got to see McGonagall about getting this changed, then._

* * *

"Excuse me, Mister Potter, you want to do what, exactly?"

Ender had dressed and immediately set off for the Great Hall. Upon entering, he had steadfastly ignored the stares—and in the case of the Slytherin contingent, jeers and insults—of the Hogwarts student body, and had marched right up to the head table. His request had been simple: to change his electives from Divination and Care of Magical Creatures to Arithmancy and Runes. Judging by the reactions of the staff within earshot, this was not a common request, and Professor McGonagall had promptly taken him to her office to discuss the matter in depth.

"I wish to change my electives, professor," Ender replied, more slowly this time, as though talking to someone who just wasn't quite getting a fairly simple concept. "I assume this is a simple matter? I can use textbooks from the library, until I am able to purchase copies for myself."

"Well, yes, Mister Potter, but why would you want to change your electives?" McGonagall asked, clearly reluctant to agree to his request. "Care of Magical Creatures, at least, is an important and useful subject."

Ender noticed with amusement that she had made no mention of Divination being important or useful (having thought, himself, that it seemed essentially worthless), before trying to figure out why she was so clearly against him switching to a different pair of electives. At Battle School, such requests had been honored without question as long as the prequisites had been met, and if the student turned out to have bitten off more than he could chew, then that was his own problem.

_Ah. There being no prerequisites, all she has to work with is her familiarity with Harry Potter, and she thinks he's too much of an idiot to follow along with the more academically-demanding subjects. Well, I need to convince her otherwise, because if I am truly in a different reality, those subjects will hold more important information that I can use to try to make it back home. Plus, Divination and Care of Magical Creatures both sound painfully boring._

"I understand," Ender said soberly. "You don't think I can hack it in the tougher courses."

McGonagall began to object, but Ender stopped her with a raised palm.

"Professor, I have worked hard for the last two years to create a specific perception of my academic capabilities," Ender said quietly, as though reluctantly divulging some painful secret. "In truth, I am capable of much more than you have seen, and I guarantee that you will see significant improvements in my grades in every class...except perhaps Potions, given Snape's obvious and ridiculous vendetta against me. "

"Why would you ever do that?" McGonagall asked skeptically, not bothering to correct Ender for his disrespect toward Snape (even most of the staff were aware of the situation, despite Albus's willful blindness).

_Guilt trip time._

"I'm surprised that you, of all people, have to ask, professor," Ender said casually. "Considering the fact that you signed my first Hogwarts letter, and addressed it to the Cupboard Under The Stairs. I would have thought you would understand that once I finally had somewhere to go, and once I had friends—especially Hermione, so proud of her own academic prowess, and Ron, so jealous of anyone who could do more than him—that it would be more important for me to fit in, rather than to excel and potentially alienate the people around me. I've been hated for my successes before, professor"—_isn't that the truth, _he thought ruefully as he remembered the reactions of many of the other Battle School students, though McGonagall would probably take it differently given her knowledge of the Dursleys—"and I desperately wanted people at Hogwarts to like me."

As Ender spoke, McGonagall's skeptical face paled and became a mask of horrified shock. Ender had always known that this was the greatest skill of all the Wiggin children: knowing a person well enough to find their weak spot, and then pound it with all their might. Ender may as well have hit McGonagall with a sledgehammer, for the look on her face. _Well, her army's frozen; might as well go through the gate._

"Since, after the events of last year, we both know that my dream of actually being liked and accepted here at Hogwarts is long dead, I might as well take classes that actually interest me," Ender continued, watching as the professor practically flinched with each callous word. "You see, I had always planned to take the OWLs and NEWTs in these subjects—and a few others, as well—but I thought I would just self-study until then. Now, though, something just tried to murder me on the bloody train ride here, after two years of other things trying to kill me. It's clear that I need to leave this place before it becomes my grave, and I'd rather have some worthwhile classes and grades on my transcript for when I start applying to other schools."

"Leave Hogwarts?!" McGonagall sputtered, getting over her shock just enough to try to talk him out of it. Harry Potter, leave Hogwarts?! The nation would riot! "Mister Potter, you can't just...your parents would have—"

"My parents are dead, professor," Ender interrupted harshly. "And since I never knew them, I'll just have to go out on a limb and imagine that they would prefer me to be happy and healthy elsewhere, rather than miserable, hated, or dead here at Hogwarts. Please switch my electives, professor."

In reality, Ender had no intention of leaving Hogwarts (though he would, of course, investigate the possibility of transferring, if for no other reason than to see what his options were). After all, Harry Potter's background knowledge and celebrity status were powerful resources, but only in Britain; if Ender transferred to another school or moved to another country, he would lose a great deal of influence. As far as McGonagall knew, though, the threat was legitimate: "Harry Potter" was sick of being put in danger, and fed up with being alternately deified and demonized by the British magical community.

In stunned silence, the Deputy Headmistress pulled out a standard form, checked a few boxes, and signed her name. Moments later, a sheet of parchment appeared in her inbox, and she indicated mutely, with a wave of her hand, that Ender should take it. He looked at new class schedule briefly, noting that his first class was now Arithmancy (Runes was to follow later in the week), and nodded in satisfaction.

"Thank you, Professor McGonagall. I'll see you in class later this morning."

Minerva McGonagall watched, dumbfounded, as Harry Potter strode confidently from her office, new schedule in hand. She reached down to open her bottom left desk drawer—which would only open to her hand—and withdrew a bottle of thirty-year-aged Macallan single-malt whisky. She took a deep swig, swallowing hard, while silently lamenting the barbarism of treating such excellent whisky like two-quid malt liquor. Moments later, the bell rang, signalling the end of breakfast, and letting everyone know that they only had ten minutes to get to class.

"Eight fifty AM, a new record," Minerva murmured. James Potter and Sirius Black—curse that horrible man—would surely have been proud; at their most troublesome (a particularly notable incident regarding the knickers and skirts of every woman in the castle above the age of sixteen), they had only managed to get Minerva to spoil great whisky at nine-fifteen AM. "Well done, Harry. Once again, you've done your father proud."

Then she remembered what Harry had said about his "family"—and what he had (in a roundabout way, and, arguably correctly), accused her of supporting—and took another swig, before putting the bottle back and slamming the drawer closed in barely-contained fury. Albus was going to have a great deal of explaining to do.

* * *

_This is a third-year elective?! _

Professor Vector had spent the entirety of the first Arithmancy lesson going over the course syllabus and a few sample lesson plans, which provided a broad overview of the mathematics involved in the course. For the average Muggle-born, it would have seemed to be a simple review of concepts they learned a few years ago, before coming to Hogwarts; for Ender—who had long-since mastered the mathematics necessary for astronavigation—it was like someone telling an Olympic sprinter that they would teach him how to walk. Just...absurd. Even before Ender had gone to Battle School, his classmates were learning this material, and at that time, he hadn't even turned six!

_Arithmetic. Valentine taught me arithmetic when I was three!_

Clearly, he was significantly ahead of his peers when it came to the mathematics; in fact, Ender knew and could apply many theories that had not even been invented yet in this reality. Unfortunately, Vector's syllabus had indicated that the class wouldn't start applying those concepts to magic—the one area in the subject in which Ender was as ignorant as his peers—until their fifth year, meaning that he would essentially be treading water for two years before he could learn anything useful in this course.

_Unless I can either self-study or convince Vector to advance me, this class will be a massive waste of my time and effort. _

"Come on, Harry," Hermione nagged after Vector dismissed the class. "If we hurry, we can probably meet up with Ron before Transfiguration."

"Go on ahead," Ender said absently, already walking to the front of the class. "I want to talk to Professor Vector first."

Hermione followed the rest of the class out the door, leaving only Ender and the Arithmancy professor in the room. When the door clicked shut, Vector turned to Ender and let out a resigned sigh.

"Mister Potter," the professor began, "if the material is too difficult, and you want to switch your electives back, just give me your schedule—"

"Sorry to interrupt, professor," Ender cut in, holding up a hand to stop Vector. "It's just that...well, I've only got a few minutes before I have to leave for Transfiguration, so I'll be blunt. I looked at the syllabus, and paged through the textbook. All of the material for this year and next year is going to be a waste of my time. I would guess that the same is true for most of the maths in the OWL- and NEWT-level course material, but at least in those classes, I would be learning some magical theory to back up the maths that I already know. Is there any way that I can test into the fifth-year class?"

Having been on staff for "only" nine years, Septima Vector had not been a professor for as long as, say, the likes of Minerva McGonagall, but she had enough experience with teenagers to be skeptical when one of them (especially a teenaged boy) claimed to be far ahead of his peers. If this arrogant display—even away from his peers—was how Harry Potter normally acted, she was almost inclined to buy into Severus's anti-Potter propaganda.

"Mister Potter, I understand that you are used to some level of leeway due to your celebrity status, but I highly doubt that you are truly prepared for—"

"Professor, I don't mean to be rude," Ender interrupted again, "but, like I said, I've only got a few minutes. Trust me when I say that I was somewhat ahead of my peers in my muggle primary school maths classes, and that none of the maths in these classes will be a challenge for me. Please just humor me—schedule me a detention and give me a third- and fourth-year placement test. I guarantee that I will pass it to your satisfaction."

"Fine," Vector snapped irritably, clearly just wanting this conversation to be over. "Come to my office tonight after dinner, and I'll have a problem set ready for you. If you pass, I will talk to Professor McGonagall about switching you into my fifth-year class. Obviously, it meets at a different time, so that would likely impact your overall schedule."

"Thank you, professor," Ender said gratefully. "I will see you tonight, and I promise that you will not be disappointed."

Vector—clearly finished with the conversation—waved her hand negligently toward the door, causing it to slam open.

"Get going, Potter," she sighed, "I'm not going to write you a note, so if you want to make it to Transfiguration, you'd better hurry."

Ender, recognizing that he had won the battle and that there was nothing left to be gained by remaining on the field, scurried out of the classroom.

* * *

"Harry, mate, where were you for Divination? Blimey, but Trelawney was a right old bat!"

_Ronald Weasley. Pure-blood. Born March 1, 1980. Will turn fourteen in several months. Harry Potter's closest male friend, a.k.a. "best mate." Surprisingly good at chess for such a linear thinker. Highly suggestible, prone to fits of jealously regarding wealth and status, and fairly lazy regarding schoolwork. Ruled by base instincts: currently hunger, but a likely candidate for womanizing and substance abuse in adulthood. Reliable while united against a common foe. Cannon fodder._

Ender had only just barely made it to Transfiguration on time, skidding through the door just as the bell rang, and had ended up isolated in the back corner, at the only remaining free desk. As such, he had not been able to speak to Harry's closest confederates until the end of the lesson. He had been amused to hear that the obvious fraud of a Divination professor had predicted Harry Potter's death—a bit late, in his opinion—but had been intrigued by the mention of a Grim, which was apparently a large black dog. Harry had apparently seen one such creature before his flight from Number Four Privet Drive that summer; Ender—well-versed in astronomy as only a graduate of the International Fleet's Command School could be—made another connection entirely, and resolved to do some further investigation at his earliest opportunity.

Of more immediate interest, though, was that Hermione Granger appeared to be a time-traveler.

"I'm sorry, Harry, but I promised the headmaster that I wouldn't tell anyone about it," Hermione repeated, taking another entirely unapologetic bite of her sandwich.

_Ah, so Dumbledore had some role in giving her a time-travel device. Good to know._

Since he had concluded—correctly, given Hermione's not-denials—that there was a simple, paradox-free, in-universe method of time-travel, all other thoughts had fled from Ender's mind.

_I must have one._

Though Ender's long-term ambitions remained the same (that is, to determine whether it was possible to return to his own reality, assuming that this one was actually real), his short-term goal was to amass as much wealth and power in this reality—the better to fund research for ways to get back home, of course—as he possibly could. A properly-applied time-travel device, even if it only allowed loops of a few hours at a time, would vastly simplify and speed this process, all through the mystical power of gambling. Between sporting events, horse races, and stock markets, it would be all but impossible to _not _become ridiculously wealthy. Now, he just had to figure out how to get Dumbledore (for, as ridiculous as it seemed, it had become clear that Hermione had been given a _time machine_ to allow her to_ take more classes_) to help him acquire such a device...

The end-of-lunch bell rang out, shaking Ender back to the present. An even shorter-term goal—getting into OWL-level Arithmancy—came to mind, and Ender began to walk in the direction of the library. He was confident in his ability to ace whatever test Vector came up with, but a little last-minute cramming wouldn't hurt, and he could look up legilimency and time-travel devices while he was there.

"Harry!" Ron called. "Aren't you coming to Hagrid's class? Hermione, where did..."

Ron looked around at the rapidly-emptying Great Hall.

"Bloody hell, where'd you go? Mental, they both are!"

* * *

"Done," Ender said softly, setting down his quill. The test—despite Vector's obvious attempt to stump him by overrepresenting the more complex problem types from fourth-year Arithmancy—had been extremely easy for Ender, and the only reason it took him nearly thirty minutes to complete was that he was a bit clumsy with the quill (Harry's muscle memory was of little help, as his handwriting was atrocious). Ender, courtesy of long hours of manipulating numbers at Battle School and Command School, was far beyond the abilities of most twentieth-century university mathematics professors, while the most complicated bit of mathematics on the fourth-year curriculum had been _geometry, _for crying out loud! "Here you go, professor."

Vector picked up Ender's exam and answer sheet, clearly skeptical; a skilled fourth-year Arithmancy student would probably have taken nearly three hours to complete the exam that she had cobbled together, but Harry Potter, of all people, seemed to have completed it in less than a half hour. She had watched as Harry's quill scratched furiously for the entire duration of his attempt at the exam...almost as though test was so easy that his physical writing speed was the only bottleneck.

Ender watched as Professor Vector's eyes scanned down the several pages of the exam's answer sheet. Gradually, her skeptical frown slowly melted away as her clenched jaw slackened until it hung open, while her furrowed brows rose steadily up toward her hairline, morphing her stern face into an expression of pure surprise.

"How...this...Potter, you got a perfect score," Vector stammered. "That is simply incredible...you didn't even put down half the work! And you were writing much too fast to be working it out on the parchment...did you do all the work in your head?"

Ender nodded, holding up his quill. "I would have written more, but honestly, the quill was just slowing me down so much that I decided to only write out the bare minimum to show that I actually knew what I was doing. My handwriting is much better and faster with regular pens and pencils, and they don't require constant re-inking."

"...Unbelievable," Vector murmured, sitting back against her imposing mahogany desk. "And here I thought that _I_ was the one calling _your _bluff. Well, you've proven that third- and fourth-year Arithmancy classes would be a waste of your time, and I agree a hundred percent. I'll speak to Professor McGonagall this evening, and she should have a new schedule ready for you tomorrow morning. Good work on the test, and welcome to OWL-level Arithmancy, Potter."

Ender grinned as he left Vector's office. Deciding to avoid Gryffindor Tower (no doubt Ron and Hermione were still busy whipping the other Gryffindors into a frenzy over the fiasco that had been Hagrid's first Care of Magical Creatures class), he made his way back toward the library. After all, he had a lot of catching up to do.

* * *

"—oh, Septima," Minerva noted in surprise from her position at the headmaster's right side. The professors were holding the traditional "first day recap" staff meeting; Septima had (as professors would do, now and again) told her at dinner that she likely wouldn't make it, due to her committing to supervising a detention. "We weren't expecting you at all tonight, let alone this early. Didn't you say that you expected the detention to take at least three hours?"

"I did," the Arithmancy professor said, appearing somewhat surprised herself. She had intended to slip in unnoticed and speak to Minerva privately after the meeting, but now every eye was upon her. "In fact, the student in question completed his assigned task much more efficiently than I had expected."

"Ah, well, we were just discussing Mister Potter," Minerva revealed, having already lost interest in her previous line of questioning. "Actually, I was rather hoping you would be able to tell us your impression of him. He was rather insistent about getting into Arithmancy and Runes, but he won't be in Runes until later in the week."

"Funny you should ask," Septima said with a sigh. "In fact, Mister Potter was the student I was supervising—"

"Typical Harry Bloody Potter," Severus interrupted, an unpleasant sneer already in place at the mention of his least-favorite student. "Of course the little brat would end up with detention on his first day back, and from a professor whose class he begged to get into. I say—"

"Actually," Spetima cut in, pre-empting Minerva's inevitable violent reaction (Severus's vendetta against the boy was truly getting out of hand—the rest of the staff honestly expected there to be blood spilled over it before Harry graduated); "I wouldn't really call it a "detention," per se. After class, Mister Potter approached me, and asked if it would be possible for him to test into OWL-level Arithmancy."

This declaration forced even those professors whose attention had wandered to focus back on Septima. Albus leaned forward, not bothering to disguise his calculating interest, while Minerva schooled her countenance to an expression of casual interest. Internally, though, Harry's words from that morning echoed harshly in her head. Was this the first salvo in Harry Potter's effort to break away from Hogwarts?

"I see," Minerva said calmly. "So this evening..."

"...I was proctoring an examination of Mister Potter's Arithmancy skills," Septima continued. "At first, I figured it for arrogance; we all know how teenagers—especially the boys—can be. Boasting, bragging, that sort of thing; for a moment, I thought that Severus might have had the closest read on the boy, though in fairness the fact that he only approached me and made his request after the other students had left did seem to indicate a more modest temperament. Then, I remembered that Mister Potter was Muggle-raised. As you are all likely aware, Muggle-born—or, in Mister Potter's case, Muggle-raised—students often have a leg up on the other students in the introductory material for Arithmancy, due to its similarity to mathematics courses in their muggle primary schools. It did not seem inconceivable that a student in muggle primary school might have been in an advanced maths course, or given advanced tutelage in the subject. Thus, I decided to humor him, and cobbled together a fairly difficult examination. I estimated that a competent student who had completed both basic level courses in Arithmancy would likely need about three hours to complete the test. It took Mister Potter less than thirty minutes."

In the silence that followed, the tension ratcheted up, and the entranced professors all leaned in a bit further. After a few nigh-unbearable seconds, the ever-excitable Filius Flitwick could contain his curiousity no longer.

"Well?" he practically cried out. "How did he do?"

With a wave of her wand, Septima produced several sheets of parchment, which she proceeded to tap against the tabletop, straightening the pile. She rarely commanded this much attention during staff meetings, and the sly grin on her face told the rest of the staff that she was quite enjoying it. Finally, though, she could draw it out no further.

"A perfect score," Septima pronounced. The other staff members gasped in shock; Arithmancy was a notoriously difficult subject, and Septima had often complained that too many of her fourth-year students did poorly enough on the final exam that they didn't even bother taking the class the next year. For a third-year to test into the fifth-year class without any actual instruction in the subject...it simply beggared belief. Septima, though, continued undeterred, clearly pleased that she had found a student worth taking under her wing. That it was the illustrious Harry Potter only sweetened the deal. "Minerva, I'll need to talk to you about scheduling Mister Potter into my OWL class."

This revelation struck a particular chord with Albus and Minerva. After lunch, the headmaster had been thoroughly berated (with a level of vehemence and rage that he had not seen from Minerva since the Marauders had been at school, and even then, it hadn't been directed at him) by his deputy over what she had learned about young Mister Potter's home life with the Dursleys. Albus had never expected the boy to have been subjected to so much suffering at Number Four Privet Drive—and he was certain that the Cupboard Under The Stairs was only the tip of the iceberg—and realized (far, far too late) that many of the comments that Albus had made to Harry in the last two years had implied that he had not only known about the boy's mistreatment, but had actively planned for it. Now, the boy's push to get into an OWL-level course was a grim reminder that he was investigating the possibility of leaving Hogwarts, and in the light of this new revelation, Albus couldn't blame him. Even so, many of his contingency plans for the future of Britain revolved around Harry Potter, and it would be a huge blow if the boy used the Arithmancy OWL as a ticket out of the country.

This was possible mainly because OWLs were seen as a sort of rite of passage in magical Britain. Even _one_ OWL was sufficient to "qualify" a wizard (NEWTS were only really necessary for job placement; most adult wizards rarely performed magic above an OWL level except within their occupational specialties); effectively, upon receipt of an OWL certification, a wizard was assumed to be roughly capable of taking care of himself, and he could leave school and wade out into the world without having his wand snapped and magic bound. Though the official age of adulthood was seventeen, OWL-qualified wizards were practically exempt from the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcery; the Trace still monitored their activitied until they came of age, as a sort of "probation" period, but the Decree could only be enforced when the Trace indicated that a wizard had "unreasonably" performed noticable magic that could put the International Statute of Secrecy in jeopardy. Thus, Harry, having indicated an interest in escaping from the peril-laden Hogwarts (and perhaps even Britain entirely), could easily make arrangements to do so once he successfully passed the Arithmancy OWL.

Albus and Minerva shared a meaningful glance. Both were thinking the exact same thing.

_This could be a problem._

* * *

**Author's Note**

Don't worry, I won't go into such crazily-mundane detail for all of Ender's classes. I wanted to take this opportunity to show how advanced Ender's skillset is (at least in some ways) when compared to the average wizard. Remember, Ender is not just a brilliant military commander...he's straight-up brilliant. Peter tells Valentine that there are about ten thousand humans as intelligent as them (obviously, Ender is one of them—the Wiggin children differ mostly in their balance between empathy and violence). Since there are worldwide population limits, we can assume that Earth is at its maximum carrying capacity of about ten billion people. So Ender's brain is something like literally one in a million. Given that IQ tests become less and less reliable the further away you get from the average, and he's somewhere around 5 SD's above the average, AND that IQ actually experiences an upward trend over time as society advances (meaning his distant-future one in a million is worth even more in 1993)...well, let's just say that Ender is _fucking smart_. Give him some quality time with the OWL textbook, and he'd probably be able to take the OWL in a week. He won't, but he could.

Mathematics is apparently abbreviated to "maths" in British English; who knew? In American English, the word is truncated to "math," which I think makes more sense. Why add that "s"? It's like they're pretending that the original spelling was "mathsematics," but only when they're cutting the word down to size. Is there a good reason, or is it like the changing of "aluminum" (which did actually come first) to "aluminium"...that is, just to be different? Dammit, Britain! First "u", now "s"? What's next?!

Review! Please!


	5. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own any characters, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately. Don't sue me.

**The Dementor and the Mind Game**

* * *

"Harry, where in the world have you been?!" Hermione cried out as Ender plopped down onto the bench at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall. "We've been looking for you since dinner last night, and Ron said you never even came back to the dorms!"

"Library," Ender grunted, rubbing his eyes beneath Harry Potter's glasses (which had been broken and repaired so many times that they were probably more magic than glass and metal at this point) and pouring himself some orange juice. "And good bloody morning to you, too."

Ender had spent nearly the entire night—with the exception of two thirty-minute naps—scouring the library. He had not searched for any specific information; instead, he had made a list of topics he would need to investigate, possible applications of the material, and relevant book titles. He needed to become well-versed in many subjects, including time travel, magical history, this reality's non-magical history (since the existence of magic would undoubtedly have an impact), politics, finances, and over a dozen magical disciplines (first on the list was, of course, legilimency and its defense, known as occlumency). All of this information was organized in a single—albeit heavily-enchanted—three-ring binder. Thankfully, Harry Potter, like many Muggle-raised students, had not yet abandoned normal stationary in favor of parchment for note-keeping, which meant that his research would be much easier to organize.

"The library?" Ron repeated incredulously. "What the bloody hell were you doing all night in the library?"

"Reading," Ender replied after a long, slow blink, trying to make it clear that he was too tired for this interrogation. "I needed to get up to speed on some stuff."

Hermione opened her mouth to ask what, exactly, Harry needed to "get up to speed" on, when she was interrupted by Professor McGonagall's voice.

"Your new schedule, Mister Potter," she said sternly, her tone betraying slight irritation as she dropped a sheet of parchment next to Ender's plate. "I hope you are not biting off more than you can chew. As interesting as last night's staff meeting was, I am hoping that you have no more surprises in store for us."

"Well, I suppose that depends, professor," Ender replied, giving McGonagall a cheeky grin. "I'm going to have to speak to Professor Sinistra tonight after Astronomy class. Astronomy has always been a hobby of mine, you see."

McGonagall tightened her control over her face to try to hide her smile, but Ender saw the corners of her lips turn upwards and her eyes sparkle with wry amusement beneath her raised eyebrows. In fact, Ender knew from Harry Potter's memories that the Astronomy curriculum was strictly academic, with relatively little use of magic; in general, the wizarding study of astronomy was old-fashioned by contemporary non-magical standards, and positively primitive by Command School standards. It was primarily based on the memorization of star charts, with a few occasional forays into applications (like determining one's general location by the position of the stars) sprinkled throughout the higher-year courses. Given his extensive astronavigation training, Ender was fairly certain that a few hours of study time (to be able to regurgitate the few necessary magical factoids) would be sufficient for him to pass the Astronomy OWL; like History of Magic, Astronomy had no NEWT course. He would just need to be careful to avoid accidentally letting slip any information that had not yet been discovered by non-magical astronomers.

As soon as McGonagall walked away, Hermione rounded on Ender.

"Harry, what was she talking about?" Hermione demanded. "Why are you getting a new schedule already? And what's this about Astronomy?"

Ender sighed, resigning himself to maneuvering around Harry Potter's closest friends, along with the other students and staff members who were overly fixated on The Boy Who Lived...so, basically, everyone at Hogwarts and throughout magical Britain.

_This is going to become very irritating, very quickly._

* * *

_A shapeshifter that will take the form of my greatest fear. How very Mind Game of this reality...maybe the Sorting Hat was full of shit, after all. This can't **possibly** go horribly wrong._

What was Ender's greatest fear? In Ender's current circumstance, a strong argument could be made for the memory charm—the fact that Lockhart was still (and likely would remain) laid up in the psych ward of St. Mungo's proved that it was possible to effectively erase an entire identity. What if Dumbledore (who was obviously up to some Colonel Graff-type of scheming with regard to Harry Potter) found out about Ender, and simply erased his mind from Harry's brain? The Sorting Hat—and Ender's continued ability to access Harry's memories—had made it clear that one well-aimed _obliviate _could have Ender walking around thinking he was Harry Potter.

Of course, what if the boggart was able to delve deep, and get at his true greatest fear? Would it be one of his recurring nightmares from Battle and Command School, like an image of buggers slaughtering Valentine? Would it be an image of the destruction of the bugger homeworld, of Ender's nigh-unforgivable genocide? Would it be his corpse, floating around in microgravity and leaving a trail of frozen droplets of blood? Or...maybe the boggart would be able to go straight for the jugular. Because when it came down to it, the only thing Ender was truly afraid of was—

_Ah. Of course._

Though Lupin had moved to intercept the boggart—and in the instant before it changed, Ender realized that the professor, conscious of Harry Potter's history, had expected it to turn into Voldemort, or perhaps the scene of Lily Potter's murder (both possibilities being undoubtedly unsuitable for a class full of civilian children)—Neville Longbottom had clumsily bumped into Ender in his attempt to escape from the rolling thorax of Ron's legless spider, pushing him closer to the creature. Lupin came up short, and the boggart turned toward Ender and changed.

Suddenly, where the legless spider had been stood a tall teenager, clearly well into his transformation from boy to man. Objectively, he was very handsome: he had a square jaw, high (almost aristocratic) cheekbones, and dark hair—combed into a neat, conservative side part—that provided an attractive sort of contrast from his relatively pale skin. His broad shoulders and long, muscular limbs suggested an active lifestyle, and perhaps involvement in some organized sport. The young man looked nearly of an age to attend university, and the way his deep cobalt eyes sparkled with an unsubtle suggestion of intelligence simply strengthened the impression of maturity.

However, for all the boggart's physical allure—and indeed, many of the teenaged girls in the room were practically ogling it—there was something undeniably _wrong _about every single one of his otherwise attractive features. He held himself arrogantly (if such a thing was even possible), like someone accustomed to using his physical size and strength to intimidate smaller and weaker children. His thin lips were pulled back in a way that a fool might call a _mischievous_ smirk, but which anyone else would call a sneer of disdain or disgust, as too many of those too-perfect teeth were showing, while his nostrils were flared in a way that almost evoked an image of a cornered dog showing its fangs. His pale skin had an almost corpse-like pallor, and a closer look at his sparkling eyes revealed that, in truth, they were glinting as malevolently as the edge of a knife in a darkened room. As quickly as they had appreciated the boggart's beauty, everyone in the room was almost overcome with an appreciation of how terrifying the boggart had become. Suddenly, banshees, mummies, and spiders didn't seem quite so scary anymore.

_Peter._

Peter, the undefeated demon of Ender's childhood. Peter, the invincible foe, against whom Ender had always lost. Peter, the ruthless psychopath who had been deemed too violent even for Battle School...and this was the same Battle School that had admitted Ender in spite of—or perhaps even _because of—_the way he had brutally murdered a bullying classmate before he even reached the tender age of six. For Ender, he would always be Peter the Terrible. For the rest of the world—except perhaps Valentine, though she _had_ helped the madman effectively achieve his dreams of world conquest—he would always be Peter the Great. Peter the Peaceful. Locke, who had used his pseudonym on the 'net to end a civil war and launch himself into the Hegemony, while Ender had murdered an entire species.

Ender froze, and his thoughts ground to a halt as the terrifying avatar of Peter Wiggin stalked forward and grabbed his throat with one strong hand. Not-Peter pulled Ender close, and leaned down until the two were practically nose-to-nose. Ender was vaguely aware that Lupin was pointing his wand at the boggart—presumably preparing to save his student in the event that the boggart actually began to do physical harm—but the rest of his mind was focused on Not-Peter's eyes. Somehow, he knew that the boggart was not yet done, had not yet struck its true blow...but that it was about to come.

A few seconds—or minutes, or hours, as Ender currently did not possess the ability to process the passage of time—later, the boggart's expression changed, and Ender would have gasped, but he seemed to have completely lost the ability to breathe. With a expression of empathy on his face, Peter looked remarkably like an older version of Ender.

**"WE ARE THE SAME," **Not-Peter intoned. The words struck Ender like hammers, with the force of law and murder and divine judgement, and everything in-between. In that instant, the boggart's eyes changed unmistakably to Ender's. They were the same shade of blue, but simultaneously kinder and yet infinitely harder, the eyes of a murderer a billion times over who has reconciled himself to the truth of his criminal nature. Stricken, Ender gasped and fell to his knees as the air rushed out of his lungs, while the boggart spoke a second time, with such authority and finality that there could be no possible argument,** "YOU ARE JUST LIKE ME." **

The boggart's words were the final straw for Remus Lupin. The new professor had begun to stride purposefully toward his stricken student as soon as the boggart opened its mouth, and grabbed the boy's arm seconds after he fell. Lupin pulled him away from the boggart, putting himself in Harry's place; after a few beats of indecision, the boggart instinctively changed to Remus's fear.

The silvery orb of the full moon stared him right in the face, and even though it was his true fear, it was also an old fear, largely conquered by virtue of experience. Without another thought, Remus waved his wand, shouted the incantation, and watched as the familiar silhouettes of four animals danced across its surface before the boggart burst into vapor and disappeared—though he hadn't laughed aloud, there was enough mirth, friendship, and brotherhood in his memories of those times that no boggart could ever stand a chance.

The classroom was absolutely silent. Several seconds later, Ender looked up, having finally slowed his breathing and heartbeat enough that he was no longer on the verge of passing out. Everyone in the room stared at him, shocked at the intensity of his reaction to what had admittedly been more terrifying than every other students' boggarts combined. Ron was pale, Neville was straightening back up (having actually vomited from anxiety), and Hermione already had tears running down her cheeks, no doubt imagining all the horrible things that her friend could have been subjected to for _that_ (an older, stronger, unmistakably cruel boy) to be his worst fear, ahead of the likes of dementors, basilisks, and Voldemort. Lupin—likely having some of the same thoughts, if his stricken expression was any guide—stepped back slightly and removed his hand from Ender's arm, as though Ender was a wounded animal that needed to be handled with absolute care.

_How the hell do I spin this?_

* * *

"Well, that's the first full week down...only thirty-nine left until summer!" the headmaster quipped. Most of the staff rolled their eyes—Albus Dumbledore had opened the first end-of-week staff meeting (since the actual first week of classes had been a half-week, the meeting had waited until the end of the second week) with that same weak joke every year since he had become headmaster, and contrary to his annual assurances, it did not "get funnier with age." "How was everyone's first week of classes?"

Most of the professors grumbled halfheartedly. They had work to do, essays to grade, research to conduct...generally, the first several staff meetings of each year were widely viewed as being wasteful of their valuable time, as there hadn't yet been enough facetime with the students to get any useful impressions. However, this year, one of the professors was visibly more excited than usual, and another was extremely tense.

"Surprising," Aurora Sinistra mused aloud, drawing a silent cacophony of raised eyebrows, as it was rare indeed for the tall, dark, alluringly mysterious witch to volunteer an opinion. "Very surprising."

After several beats of tense silence, Albus—intrigued, and worried that the brilliant astronomer might have been surprised by Harry Potter—felt the need to move things along.

"Would you care to elaborate, my dear?" he prompted, attempting—and, as far as most of the staff were concerned, failing—to hide his voracious interest with an affected air of casual humor.

Aurora's eyes briefly flicked to the deputy headmistress, and Minerva immediately knew where this was going.

"Well, Mister Potter rather cornered me after class the other night," the astronomer remarked, ignoring the instant hubbub and casually inspecting her manicured and polished fingernails. Knowing Aurora's sassy, sarcastic sense of humor (many who knew Aurora Sinistra maintained that she was the best kind of Slytherin for this exact reason), the rest of the staff immediately recognized that she was mocking Albus's poorly-disguised hyperinterest in anything related to Harry Potter, and several suspiciously-mirthful snorts and coughs were heard from around the table. "In short, he requested entrance into my OWL-level class. Given Septima's experience the other day, I decided to humor him, so I administered a quick quiz of his knowledge of Astronomy and he impressed me enough that I forwarded the paperwork to your inbox this afternoon, Minerva."

"I haven't gotten to it yet—the bloody Weasley twins kept me too busy to knock out all my paperwork today—but I will admit that I rather expected this from Mister Potter," the deputy headmistress admitted, nodding. "When I gave him his updated schedule, he mentioned that he would be speaking to you, claiming that Astronomy had been something of a hobby, though I wondered at the time if he had been joking. I assume you feel that he will be able to keep up with the pace of the class?"

"Oh, most definitely. Mister Potter has clearly studied Astronomy from a non-magical perspective, and it has obviously served him very well indeed," Aurora murmured. Her choice of words reminded the rest of the staff that Aurora was a rare creature in magical Britain, in that she was known for her effusive praise of muggle technology (particularly in the fields related to astronomy, such as optics and space flight), despite her social status as a wealthy pureblood. "In fact, it's almost a shame that the Ministry only administers the OWLs in June; I quite suspect that Mister Potter could score an O if he took the OWL today."

After the exclamations and murmurs died down, Pomona Sprout asked the new Defense Against the Dark Arts how his first week of teaching had gone. She had heard some vague rumors that spoke of _something _happening with the third-year Gryffindors, though most of the students were being uncharacteristically close-lipped about whatever had transpired.

Lupin's jaw clenched, and his lips pulled back into a disturbed frown.

"As a student in my third year, I found the practice of subjecting children to their worst fear—before their peers, no less—questionable, if not outright distasteful. This week has impressed upon me the unshakable belief that this practice is barbaric at best, and frankly, quite cruel."

"What?" Snape scoffed, "did some of the little brats cry? I say if they can't handle a little fear, then that just goes to show that perhaps the Defense Against the Dark Arts professorship should have gone to someone—"

"Like you?" Lupin snapped, his eyes sharpening. "Funny you should mention that, considering how many of the students seemed to fear _you _above all else. In fact, at least one student per class—yes, including your precious Slytherins—had their boggart take _your_ form."

"Who was it?" Snape roared. "I'll give them something—"

"How proud you must be, you petty, cruel, _snivelling _little man, to know that some of the children in your care consider you to be the most terrifying thing in the world!" the Defense professor snarled, practically panting as he finally vented some of the anger that had been stewing in his chest for the last few days. The normally calm man was clearly on the verge of violence, and his typically nondescript brown eyes began to lighten to a bright amber, while his canine teeth began to visibly lengthen to fangs. Recognizing that Lupin was losing grip on his tenuous hold over the beast within, the rest of the professors leaned away from him, fingering their wands beneath the table. Thankfully, Lupin forcibly pulled his attention away from the offending potioneer, appearing to calm himself as he instead focused his eyes toward the head of the table.

"Albus, Minerva, I am terribly disappointed in you both, for the way you allow one of your professors to terrorize—_yes, bloody well terrorize—_your students," Remus ground out. His words clearly had a heavy impact; the headmaster's eyes had long lost their trademark twinkle, and both he and McGonagall were glaring at Snape in a way that promised swift and terrible retribution. Remus, however, had one final bombshell to drop.

"And speaking of terrified students, would one of you care to explain _how __exactly __the __fuck _Harry Potter came into contact with a teenaged Voldemort within the walls of Hogwarts?!"

* * *

Though Defense Against the Dark Arts—as taught by Professor Lupin—quickly became most students' favorite class, that was not quite the case for Ender. The simple fact was that, for all of Lupin's enthusiasm and charisma, most of the information in his curriculum was little more than worthless trivia. For example, it didn't matter that one could bow at a kappa, enticing it to bow in turn, and thus spill the water from its bowl-shaped head; it would be much easier, more efficient, and more reliable to simply shoot it with a gun (or, given the wizarding aversion to all things "muggle," hit it with virtually any direct-damage curse). That seemed to be a common theme with the majority of the threats discussed in Lupin's class. At the very least, no further mention was made of Ender's boggart after he explained that it was a teenaged Tom Riddle; luckily, Peter Wiggin resembled the fledgling Dark Lord to a surprising degree (certainly to the extent of a detailed description of his features), and any visual differences could easily be attributed to "Harry's" fear of blending into or becoming Tom.

No, DADA continued to be tedious, Herbology continued to be...well, gardening, Potions continued to be an exercise in ignoring Snape's baleful gaze and muttered epithets (as most of his previous practices had been toned down a great deal after a blistering chewing-out from both Dumbledore and McGonagall that had been heard all the way to the Hufflepuff dorms), Runes proved to be largely memorization (and would remain so until the OWL-level), and the entire Astronomy curriculum continued to be roughly equivalent to a much simpler version of a single night's astronavigation homework from Ender's first year at Battle School. When it came down to it, Ender had only one truly interesting course: Arithmancy.

Ender was finding himself in the all-too-familiar position of being resented by older students for his excellence, as the math was simplistic for him (in fact, for Ender it was literally child's play) but remained nearly impenetrable to the average OWL student. However, if there was one thing that Battle School had taught him, it was how to ignore being hated by older students for being better than them. Instead, Ender focused his energy on the applications of practical arithmancy: enchanting, warding, ritual design, and spellcrafting. It was those last two that had ensnared the majority of his attention; if there was any way to return to his own reality (or at least improve his life as Harry Potter in this one), then ritual magic and creating his own spells were likely the best way to do it. As a result of this focus, he rapidly became Septima Vector's prized pupil, constantly astonishing her with how quickly he was moving through the fifth-year curriculum.

On top of his Arithmancy tunnel vision (though, true to form, he quickly rocketed to the top of the year in every class—even Snape couldn't mark down a perfect potion), Ender was spending huge amounts of time in the library. Having gotten Professor Vector to sign a permission slip to access the Restricted Section (on the grounds that he would need to "catch up to the OWL standard"), Ender was practically devouring books on virtually every available topic, at a rate unseen since Albus Dumbledore's own time at Hogwarts.

What little free time Ender had left was typically spent on the Quidditch pitch, though he had flatly refused to attend more than three practices per week; Oliver Wood had been nearly apoplectic with rage, but Ender argued that there was little point in the Seeker learning all the Chaser and Beater plays, since he would be so far removed from the rest of the players anyway. When Wood persisted, Ender put his foot down, making it clear that his first priority was school, and that if Wood wanted a Seeker who could attend more than three practices per week, then he would need to find someone else for the position. Faced with the prospect of losing the best Seeker in the school (especially since there were virtually no decent fliers remaining in Gryffindor), Wood backed down, but made sure to eke out every ounce of performance from Ender during the the practices. Ender—accustomed to the much more physically active lifestyle of an International Fleet officer—welcomed the exercise, and supplemented it with daily morning runs, stretches, and bodyweight training. This exercise, in combination with the nutritional potion regimen (which Ender simply owl-ordered, lacking the time, skill, and inclination to brew on his own) he had begun after some cursory research into the subject, was rapidly improving Harry's Potter's previously sickly-thin physique. As a side effect of all of this activity, Ender was generally completely exhausted by the time he returned to Gryffindor Tower, and typically went to bed immediately (rather than hang out or do homework with his housemates).

Unfortunately, all of these distractions and draws on his time necessarily began to drive a wedge between Ender and Harry Potter's friends and peers. Hermione was finding it difficult to have her role in the group as the "smart one" usurped (especially with how easy Ender was making the classwork seem, considering the fact that most of his library research was obviously unrelated to his assignments), Ron was keenly missing the time he normally spent with Harry, and the remaining Gryffindors—with whom Harry had never truly been particularly close—were hard-pressed to find him at all outside of classes and meals. Ender, who was accustomed to being alone and had precious little in common with these children, did not spare much thought or worry to the status of his connection to these facets of Harry Potter's life.

In truth, Ender had found the companionship of the likes of Hermione and Ron to be lacking, made all the worse by his seeming inability to cease comparing them (unfavorably, in virtually every aspect) to his comrades, subordinates, and acquaintances from Battle School and Command School. Hermione was clever, yes, and loyal in her own—often nagging—way, but she was no Petra, and certainly no Valentine (though in fairness, Ender knew that he would never be able to compare anyone favorably to his sister). Ron had been stalwart in the past, but he lacked practically every other quality that Ender had valued in his lieutenants: Bean's intensity and brilliance, Alai's unconditional acceptance...he even fell short of matching the wild abandon of the likes of Dink and Crazy Tom. Meanwhile, the rest of Harry's friends and acquaintances at Hogwarts were so inferior to those of his own reality as to barely warrant any comparison at all; for example, no Battle School cadet had ever been as clumsy or inept as Neville Longbottom (yes, there was a tiny kernel of courage there, but it was hidden far beneath his many debilitating insecurities), and even the bullies of magical Britain were almost cartoonishly stupid and weak-willed. For all his cruelty and pride, Bonito "Bonzo" de Madrid had been an intelligent and capable commander in his own right, and possessed his own brand of honor (which had ironically allowed Ender to goad him into single combat), while—at the risk of making a sweeping generalization—Draco Malfoy and his ilk were arrogant almost beyond belief, morally bankrupt, and seemingly bereft of any potentially-redeeming qualities whatsoever.

It was this same detachment from the vast majority of the student body and the overall happenings of Hogwarts that led Ender to lose track of the one issue that had in fact been the root (if indirect) cause of his entry into this reality. It came as a surprise, then, when on the final day of October—Ender Wiggin's own thirteenth birthday, as well as a day of national celebration in magical Britain, both from ancient pagan traditon and, more recently, in honor of Harry Potter's defeat of Voldemort in 1981—after the annual Halloween Feast, Sirius Black came to call on Gryffindor Tower.

* * *

**Author's Note**

Sorry this took so damnably long—over two months! As ever, real life has continued in its rather rude tendency to poke its way into time I had previously set aside for the noble pursuit of writing.

I'd like to thank Kerowyn6 for pointing out an error I made, which resulted in me skimming this chapter and finding an embarrassing number of typos and misspellings

The canon third year class schedule is notably vague and inconsistent, so I shied away from being clear on what days and times Harry has each class. That will continue, but it shouldn't damage readability because there will be timeskips to pass between major events anyway.

The purpose of the staff meetings is to more closely parallel the structure of _Ender's Game _(the conversations between Graff and Anderson, and later between Graff and Chamrajnagar), and also to give me a chance to show some "behind the scenes" action at Hogwarts. Plus, teachers have feelings too! Well, maybe not Snape. ;)

Speaking of the teachers, I have received several PMs about their behavior. Specifically, Lupin's relatively short fuse, compared to his somewhat more laid-back canon attitude. There are a few major reasons for Lupin's slightly-uncharacteristically short fuse in this chapter. First, he was very recently on an emotional rollercoaster when Harry was Kissed, on top of already being touchy about Harry, since he was hired almost entirely to protect him against Sirius Black. Second, Snape's constant belittling of Harry made the issue of Snape's abuse of the students (to the point where several of them fear Snape more than anything else) a personal matter, which only served to feed the simmering hatred between the two men. Third, it was a hell of a mindfuck when Harry's boggart turned out to be a version of Voldemort that he should never have encountered, and only ever met because of the staff's reckless attitude toward the students' safety. As far as Lupin is concerned, the fact that a 12-year-old Harry needed to risk his life to stop Voldemort again constituted a huge failure on the part of the staff in general, and the headmaster in particular. Fourth, it is seriously fucked up that the headmaster-who has presumably spent the last dozen years defending Snape against constant complaints about his douchebaggery-has allowed Snape to so thoroughly abuse his students that he has literally become their worst nightmare, and any objective person would strongly argue against Snape's behavior on that point alone. Finally, he's a werewolf-with all those factors getting his blood pumping, he is gonna have a tough time keeping his cool. As for Snape's behavior...honestly, in canon, he's pretty over-the-top when it comes to how vindictive and petty he can be, especially whenever Harry or any of the Marauders are mentioned. I don't think his reactions-defensiveness, outrage, and an immediate attempt at reprisal-are OOC for him. Keep in mind that Snape acted like this throughout the first three books, before he had the excuse of "needing to keep up his cover" as an explanation for his atrocious behavior; when it comes down to it, Snape is a prick.

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